Commonplace book

orig. A book in which ‘commonplaces’ or passages important for reference were collected, usually under general heads; hence, a book in which one records passages or matters to be especially remembered or referred to, with or without arrangement.1578 COOPERThesaurus A studious yong man ... may gather to himselfe good furniture both of words and approved phrases ... and to make to his use as it were a common place booke. 1642 FULLERHoly & Prof. St. A Common-place-book contains many notions in garrison, whence the owner may draw out an army into the field.

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Tuesday, April 14, 2009

. . . what either occurrence of the word literary refers to in the following sentence: “Th[e] ability to enlist various kinds of writing not themselves per se ‘literary’ in the creation of literary form is part of what has allowed fiction to retain its vitality. . . .” If both refer to the same thing why is the first handled with quotation marks? And if they refer to different things how do the quotation marks specify the difference? Help me. I’m lost.

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comments:

It seems to me that the first word in quotation marks is simply a poor attempt at mockery. It didn't work out very well because of the negative use of that sentence. Had he said "The ability to enlist various kinds of "literary" writing..." perhaps it would have made more sense. Either way, I'm not a fan of mocking by punctuation.

I am prepared to accept your claim that Green did not intend to say what he seems to be saying, but it not so clear that this is how his sentence reads. If your revised version accurately represents his meaning, you have to wonder why he did not take the time to rework his sentence to get to it.

But does your revised version accurately represent his meaning? How do you know? For even your distinction is less clear-cut upon a second and a third reading. The “literary” is conventional, but the literary is actual? Or, rather, the “literary” is cultural, but the literary is formal? You got all that from one set of quotation marks?

Until Green unmuddles this tiresome little knot, his essays may be “immensely enjoyable,” but they aren’t very good. They can’t be. They are approximations rather than exact statements.

D. G. Myers

A critic and literary historian for nearly a quarter of a century at Texas A&M and Ohio State universities, I am the author of The Elephants Teach and ex-fiction critic for Commentary. I have also written for Jewish Ideas Daily, the New York Times Book Review, the Weekly Standard, Philosophy and Literature, the Sewanee Review, First Things, the Daily Beast, the Barnes & Noble Review, the Journal of the History of Ideas, American Literary History, and other journals. Here is the Commonplace Blog’s statement of principles, such as they are.